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262 Boiler Operator’s Handbook

up that would result in attacking the boiler metal. opened for inspection and some of that coating breaks
The typical commercial or industrial boiler plant off like scale. Hopefully I’ll learn enough to give you
today uses a combination of phosphate and chelant some guidelines for operating wisely using polymers in
which is introduced into a boiler the same way as phos- a later version of this book.
phate. The phosphate residual reacts with any ions en- That’s it! Hopefully not as complicated as you
tering the boiler and the chelant works on the scale that thought. Simply believe in ions, good ones and bad
has formed in the boiler because the phosphate residual ones, and oxygen control to protect your boilers. If the
beat them to the ions. treatment program you’re using doesn’t make sense to
Polymers are the new innovation in boiler water you keep asking the water treatment consultant to ex-
treatment today and, to be perfectly honest, I don’t have plain it until you get something you understand and can
enough experience with polymer treatment to address manage. If the consultant isn’t interested in training you
it. I do know that a boiler treated with polymer will have to do a good job tell the boss he had better get a different
a thin gray coating on the steel parts when a boiler is one.